I was just trying not to double space after reading your post. Guess what. I can't do it. My thumbs just keep hitting that space bar twice.

Same here. I grew up learning to type on a manual typewriter. I can't *not* hit the space bar twice.

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I mean when you are speaking to someone. "BTW" has 5 syllables. "By the way" has only 3.

NOW, I'm going to bed. Really I am. I think.

Oh wow, saying those acronyms when actually speaking just does not leave a favorable impression, does it? But those commercials with whole conversations in texting acronymese are pretty funny

I don't text but I've been using online communication for many years (more than half my life, I think first online encounters were 15 years ago... of course I know many people can beat me and go back much further)

The short cuts have always annoyed me. LOL annoys me. B4 annoys me. ROFL annoys me. H8 annoys me. Other similar things annoy me. I used to even get annoyed with happy faces but I think I got over that. The short cuts were used way before texting when people had full keyboards to use.

I don't know if any of you watch Californication, but there's a great episode where Hank (David Duchovny's character) is in bed with a woman and they're laughing and chatting and she says "LOL". Like ... says the letters. El. Oh. El.

And he stops dead and looks at her and says "Did you just SAY lol?"

Their relationship ends shortly after that, but not before he goes on a huge rant about how people can't talk or write any more.

The episode just made me giggle all the way through because it so perfectly echoed my thoughts about text speak and how the Internet has "dumbed down" our language skills.

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I need the emoticons. I'm such a smart aleck that if I didn't have someway to indicate that I'm kidding around, I would probably have hit men hunting me down. I'm not sure how it works on a phone pad, but on my PDA it is just as much of a pain to use numbers for sounds(such as H8) because you have to hit the function button then the number, so it is just as easy to type out the word.

I also thought those commercials were cute. I've always used some shorthand(w/o for without) and, yes, I took Gregg's Shorthand in high school. Now do we all realize how old I am.

Photochick, I also learned to type on a manual along with the IBM Selectric. Now it's called "keyboarding" and it seems most are really "hunt and pecking". Guess that is part of the reason for all the shortcuts. I think for many of us oldies it is just as fast to type it out.

It bothers me sometimes, I guess it really depends who the text is from. My boyfriend, who is really very smart, will text me and it seems like it's from a completely different person. I've been texting since I was about 14 years old, or close to it. ...Almost 10 years now! My text language has changed quite a bit since then.

haha...I've heard many kids my age talk in text.... actually speak "LOL" "WTF" "OMG" I think it's pretty normal for my generation. Sad, but normal. We've had computers since we were small children. It's just how we were raised. We're used to it. And it's hard to change.

One of my husbands coworkers (a guy on his way to a phd) will say WTF or LOL. I just roll my eyes.

I type out "oh my god". I actually wouldn't really use wtf and I don't use rtfm although its one of the shortcuts that always amuses me.

There is one "acronym" that I ALWAYS have to look up on Urban Dictionary (thank goodness for that site!). It is ftw. I think I'll remember it having looked it up a dozen times now, but I still don't understand why it has to be used. It means "for the win" and my daughter's friends will use it on Facebook when they're discussing things.

Anyway, I am so thankful for the conversation about the periods! I am a die hard two spacer and I'm sure I'll never get over that habit. My daughter tried to tell me why I didn't need to do it, but she couldn't come up with a reason other than it wasn't necessary. Now I know why, thanks Amanda!

Thank you so much for mentioning this site. I just checked it out. I think this could help me a lot.

You are welcome. It really comes in handy if you have teenagers!!!

It took a couple years for me to stop spelling everything out and use "text" lingo; however, my new phone will complete words as you type so I am finding that I am reverting to old behavior.

As for the double spacing at the end of a sentence I don't think I can ever change that. I just did a typing test both ways and my test using one space was 18 WPM slower. Reason enough for me not to stop.

Well, this may not be true of all acronyms, but most of the time I'd rather hear WTF than the actual words. When did F become something comfortably said in front of ANYONE?

Well .. I'm one of those people who drops the f-bomb quite a bit. I watch myself around kids, but otherwise, to me it's just another word.

I will admit that I do use acronyms a lot ... BTW, YMMV, WTF, etc. I don't mind acronyms at all. I just hate things like 4 (for), ur (your/you're), r (are), etc.

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